¡Tintorera!

The film starts off promising. Right off the bat, we see the shark, a tiger shark to be exact (a.k.a. Tintorera), accompanied by darkly brooding theme music. Once the title hits the screen, the music changes into an upbeat jungle/disco rhythm hybrid... and disturbs the mood, completely. Potential is lost from here on out, and everything else escalates in a downward spiral... reminiscent of a "flush rinse", and about as enjoyable.

Our main characters, Esteban and Miguel, are a couple of happy-go-lucky/shark-poaching knuckleheads who love to hang out together, on the poopdeck... in the nude. Oh, and they also have a penchant for the ladies. The ladies must dig them for their lack of morals and hatred for underwear. The yachting type, to a tee.

ANYWAYZ... Our story continues to shamble along, and all the essentials are here: nude swimming, crazy sex, more nude swimming, gratuitous stock footage of sharks getting killed for no reason, dry land conversation that occasionally lapses into another language, a few chicks here and there, even more nude swimming, close-up after close-up of Hugo Stiglitz and his beard, yachta, yachta, yachta.

Fiona Lewis, Susan George, Jennifer Ashley and Priscilla Barnes are just a few of the lovely ladies, that join Esteban and Miguel, from one occasion to another. Summer flings don't mean a thing, 'less you got that love sting.

If you enjoy seeing real sharks getting senselessly slaughtered for no reason, then there is plenty to see here. One hopes that these scenes are stock footage, and not created for the purpose of this film. Either way, it is crass exploitation, at it's worst.

There aren't enough good things to keep this film afloat. Ultimately, the film's poster along with an interesting score by Basil Pouledouris, the man who would later give Arnold Schwarzenegger his trademark cues, with his score for "CONAN THE BARBARIAN", are the best qualities. A major waste. A good film could have been made, but wasn't.

Barnes, George and Lewis all appear in shoddy nude scenes, that may give this film it's only appeal.

As for the director, Rene Cardona, he has fared much better in previous films. If only he had teamed the shark against the aztec mummy, we might actually have something worth seeing!

Along with the equally uninteresting "DEEP BLOOD", this one ranks as one of the lesser films to come out of the "JAWS" knock-off trend.

Reporting from my schooner, sans clothes... -Nathan.

The technical ocean photography portrayed real sharks in action, seeking anything in sight, made JAWS look like a Disney flick. This picture had a great deal of realism and presented a very clear picture of the world in which the sharks of the ocean dwell. Susan George and Priscilla Barnes held you spellbound with love and romance and the fear of being eaten alive by the "TINTORERA". If you are a Susan George fan, view this picture.

The original book "Jaws" actually had quite a bit of sex in it which Steven Spielberg left out of the famous film (other the than one impossible-to-make-out nude swimming scene at the beginning). There is nothing wrong therefore with adding a little sex and nudity back into the shark movie formula. Unfortunately, what this film does is add a few shark scenes into what is basically a swinging 70's sex movie. Two Mexican prettyboys spend their time seducing bikini-clad British and American tourists (played by some admittedly very attractive actresses). They don't seem to notice that a giant tiger shark is making short work of the cast until halfway through the film. In one ridiculous scene, for instance, the girl one of the men has fallen in love with(played by Fiona Lewis)goes for a nude swim after bedding down with the other man and (of course) is eaten by the shark a la the opening of "Jaws". But the one guy doesn't seem to notice that her clothes are still in the house, while the other doesn't stop to wonder what has happened to the girl he earlier fell for.

Several other reviewers have already commented on the homoerotic aspects of the film. The two guys are naked more than the women (and almost as much as the shark). They go from sleeping with the same woman (Lewis), to "switch-hitting" with two women (one of who is played by Priscilla Barnes), to finally having sex with the same woman at the same time (Susan George). The 25th Anniversary DVD edition came out this year (it's actually the 27th anniversary but whose counting?)and they apparently added a bunch of additional footage (even though the movie is slow as molasses already). I suspect some of this additional footage might involve these two swingers just getting it over with and having sex with each other. But I'm not complaining about the sex, the nude scenes, or the even homosexual subtext--this is supposed to be a shark movie! What about the shark?!

This film is about 3 people-2 men and a woman,who get together as a threesome,doing Everything together.The woman swears that she has no feeling for either of them specially and encourages them to feel the same way-no commitment.But when 1 of the guys dies by a shark attack,she leaves the other one,apparently having a love for the dead man in the end.During this film,many women die from attacks-hardly introduced as characters,so you don't really care.The film is bizarre and ridiculous.

I expected a Jaws clone and got a movie about threesomes. After I got over the initial shock I actually found Tintorera to be a sweet, almost classy, little male fantasy. Tintorera is actually a sex/beach-flick, and thus perfectly captures the feel of the seventies take on sexual revolution; an era of hedonistic disco parties, sexual experimentation and short, loveless sexual encounters. Rene Cardona Jr. regular Hugo Stiglitz looks great as a wealthy boy on vacation, Esteban, who "finds himself" in a three part relationship with the cute Gabrielle and his former sexual competitor Miguel, the Shark hunter. Meanwhile the feared Tintorera, a big-ass tiger shark, is having a feast on the sexed-out beach community. The "f***-and-die" concept, usually seen in slasher films, is clearly visible and you could say that Tintorera's attack on the swimmers are really an attack on the sexual revolution. If you want cheese you'll have no trouble finding it (the Darth Vader-like breathing of Tintorera or the underwater conversations between Esteban and Miguel directly springs to mind...), but don't look to hard since the larger parts of the movie is actually pretty well-made and totally undeserving of its bad reputation (which I think is more due to the whole idea of a shark/sex movie, than the movie itself). Chances are you might actually enjoy it, as I did.

Also, if you are a gay man interested in exploitation cinema you are bound to like it: the homosexual overtones between Esteban and Miguel are painfully obvious and there are numerous shots of Hugo Stiglitz cute little ass.

7/10 on a regular scale